


Unless You Take It Back

by lovethatwewerein



Category: Glee, The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: M/M, Sebastian Smythe is Barry Allen | The Flash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-18
Updated: 2021-02-18
Packaged: 2021-03-14 03:34:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,970
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29536197
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lovethatwewerein/pseuds/lovethatwewerein
Summary: He’s known for years now that he can’t outrun the past. He can ignore it, pretend it never existed in the first place - but he can’t outrun it, no matter how fast he becomes. Every Wells reminds him of that, Caitlin does and Oliver does and even Joe, on his most difficult days, makes sure he knows that there’s no escaping the moments that made him, helped him grow into who he is now.
Relationships: Barry Allen/Music Meister, Blaine Anderson/Sebastian Smythe
Comments: 5
Kudos: 56





	Unless You Take It Back

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first attempt at anything that isn't just seblaine. Ro left a comment on my previous fic asking for a Flash/Music Meister fic where Sebastian is Barry. I really hope you like it :)
> 
> Title from 'Take Me or Leave Me' from Rent

He’s known for years now that he can’t outrun the past. He can ignore it, pretend it never existed in the first place - but he can’t outrun it, no matter how fast he becomes. Every Wells reminds him of that, Caitlin does and Oliver does and even Joe, on his most difficult days, makes sure he knows that there’s no escaping the moments that made him, helped him grow into who he is now. 

Still, they don’t know his full story. Joe knows the most about him, the years he had to take to himself, away from everything and everyone that tied him to this need to be the hero, to take a stand and protect people in the way he’s never been able to protect himself. But he’s respected that even Sebastian needs to keep his secrets and he’s never once forced him to confront his years away from home. 

So no one’s made him come face to face with that. Not until now, at least. 

“What am I doing here?” He turns to the man beside him, hands tucked into his pockets because he’s been here before. The location, the people, the same villain that does everything he does with a mission unclear to anyone but himself. “How did you even know about this?” 

“I know a lot of things,” the music meister responds, taking a step forward so they’re face to face in the familiar choir room of Dalton. There’s no indication of the date or time but he knows, deep in his bones, what happened minutes ago. “And I know how you feel about every single thing you did.” 

And maybe he does because, despite one past meeting, he doesn’t know the depth of the man’s powers. What his motives are. “So why’d you bring me here? Make me feel worse about it than I already do?”

“No, actually. I brought you here to make amends.”

“It’s too late for that,” he shakes his head, slumping into one of the chairs that’d always found uncomfortable in his time here. The cushions are softer now and he supposes that’s part of the illusion. “We’ve all moved on.” 

“Have you though?” 

He thinks back to that day, to being a stupid kid that took everyone else’s anger and piled it onto his own. To wanting to hurt someone, anyone, the way he’d been hurting for too long. “Maybe I haven’t but he has.” 

“You can’t know that.” 

“I can make a pretty good guess.” 

The shorter man narrows his eyes and it’s so much of a Blaine expression that he has to remember this is pretend. This is someone making an effort to dig deep under his skin and bring out old hurt, stir up old, long repressed feelings. “Because of the wedding?” 

“You don’t need to remind me.”

“I don’t think you remember it as well as you think.” There’s a click of his fingers and they’re there, at the bottom of Dalton’s spiral staircase as Blaine proposes. He glances around and it’s the first time he’s capable of taking in his surroundings, Kurt Hummel’s dad beside him and a brunette girl he doesn’t know in front of him. 

It’s the same position he’d stood in during his senior year, watching this exact scene unfold, but that version of him isn’t there this time, replaced by current him. More mature but still struggling to listen to all the words Blaine is saying without an ache settling in his heart. 

“Those of you that know me know that I’m not in the habit of taking people’s hands I’ve never met before,” Blaine says and it cuts deep to realise that he remembers every word. Someone nudges him and he thinks it’s Nick, an effort at comfort that he hadn’t registered the first time. “And I think that my soul knew something that-”

“Do I have to listen to this?” 

“Is it not helping you? Not putting things into perspective?” He blinks and everyone has disappeared again, leaving him staring at Blaine frozen on the stairs, the music meister circling the other man with interest. “He kind of looks like me, don’t you think?” 

He does, Sebastian has known that since the first time he whammied him, but he won’t admit to it. And he won’t admit that seeing the both of them together isn’t surreal, such similar traits but different personalities. 

“Okay, don’t answer,” he shrugs, tapping Blaine’s nose gently before walking down the final steps to stand in front of him once more. “You think this is the end of your story, huh? Blaine and Kurt just went on with their lives, happily married and you went onto all your zipping around.” 

“That’s what happened. You can’t change the reality of it just because you want to trick me.” 

“Your side of it is very much the same, true,” he spins on his heel and it’s been a long time since Sebastian has felt this exhausted, since he’s wanted to curl up in bed and forget that he’s a hero. That he’s the one who saves the day, not the one who needs saving. “But you never got to see theirs. Should we go to the freshman fifteen, the breakup or the almost marriage?”

“Maybe we should go to none of them and you just take me back home.” 

“I can’t do that. You have to find the end to this story yourself.” 

“Don’t you da-” and he’s gone in with another click of his fingers, the setting changing to the inside of a cafe, rain hitting the window nearest to him harshly. There’s textbooks in front of him, organic chemistry and his own handwriting in front of him. He’s taken these notes, studied this course before, but not here. He’s never even been here. He presses the back of his hand to the cardboard coffee cup on the table, still warm. “Asshole.” 

The bell above the door chimes and he might be the only one paying enough attention to notice it. Blaine Anderson walking through the door shouldn’t be as unexpected as he finds it at this point, tears in his eyes, wearing a maroon cardigan with no coat. 

He stands, not really sure what the point is but this is a chance. He’s a different person, shaped by world experiences that Blaine couldn’t even begin to imagine, but he doesn’t know that. Doesn’t understand that the Sebastian approaching him is older, has a better knowledge of who he is, so he treads carefully. 

“I know that hair,” he says, joining the queue behind the other man. Blaine turns to him, wiping his cheeks with his sleeve and leaving a red mark in its place. “How have you been?” 

“Good,” Blaine nods like he’s not still trying to hold back tears in a coffee shop. It reminds him too much of how he’d pretend to be okay when the world crumbled. How much he still pretends to be okay. “I’m in New York. How bad could life be?” 

“It looks like it could be better,” he jokes and he smiles when Blaine chuckles bashfully, tilting his head towards the floor before lifting his eyes to Sebastian’s. “Come on. I’ll get you a coffee.” 

Blaine orders a medium drip, the same as always, and Sebastian orders a decaf latte that he probably won’t drink. If he’d been slightly less proud, like he was when surrounded by his family, he’d have no issue getting something severely lacking in caffeine like a hot chocolate. But this is Blaine, even in a fictional universe of someone else’s creation, and he can’t bring himself to seem so childish in front of the other man. 

“What are you doing in New York?” 

“Studying,” he answers because he doesn’t really know. He’d moved back to Central City after graduating from Dalton and this wasn’t a part of his life. But he can bend the truth a little. 

“Chemistry major?” 

“Chemistry and physics,” he sips his coffee just for something to do and it’s more bitter than he remembers it being. He tends to drink tea these days. “Double major.” 

“Impressive.” 

He shrugs, less impressed with it than he’d been in the past. He’s spent the last few years surrounded by people even smarter than him, people that knew most of the answers he didn’t when he needed them most, and it’s stopped him being so confident over the double major. “I just really like science.” 

The other man’s eyes light up, shining hazel under the harsh overhead lighting. “Either way, it’s probably a lot more interesting than being a musical theatre major.” 

“Don’t drag yourself down like that. You’re great at what you do, Blaine.” 

Blaine blushes, fiddling with the lid of his cup and there’s a quiet but sharp crack when he presses too hard against the plastic. “Thank you.” 

And the conversation moves on, random topics that don’t mean much. He doesn’t bring up Kurt, he would never bring up Kurt, but Blaine doesn’t either - a sign that maybe there are chips in that relationship that he wants to know about, that’ll give him the opportunity to fix the mistakes he’d made in his youth and make amends. 

“This was… really great, Sebastian,” Blaine tells him when the rain starts to clear up, the night beginning to wear down on them both as time passes. “Maybe we could meet up again? Just hang out?” 

He knows in his gut that it doesn’t matter what he says, if he turns Blaine away or accepts his offer to grow together, because this isn’t reality. But, knowing what he does, he could make it one. Take this chance that a villain with a still very confusing agenda has afforded him. He’d be a fool to turn it away. 

“Do you still have my number?” 

*

He wakes with a start, much the same position he’d found himself in the last time this had happened. Caitlin is still at his side and Iris jumps up from where she’d been resting in a chair on the other side of the bed to push him back down onto the bed, muttering something about him under her breath. 

“Why did he come back?” Caitlin asks herself or him while holding his arm aloft to measure his heart rate. 

He doesn’t respond but Harry does. “I believe Sebastian can tell us but he’s not going to.” 

He blinks and it’s still annoying how much every Wells seems to know about him, the way his mind works. Caitlin glares at him, anticipating an answer. “Can you hand me my phone?” 

_Can I see you tonight? I’m in town._

He’s not expecting a response straight away, not in the slightest but an answering message is sent immediately, a pin to a coffee shop in New York that he knows instinctively is the one from the alternate reality he’d just woken up from. Strange, really, how he doesn’t even question coincidences like that anymore. 

Iris warns him that it could be a bad idea but, when it’s made clear that he’s going regardless of her support, she wishes him luck, hugging him tightly before he rushes out of the door, prepared for an obscenely long run compared to usual just for the miniscule chance that things could work out for him this time. 

The coffee shop is exactly the same as it had been, almost as if he’s still stuck in a different lifetime. But he’s reassured that he’s not when there’s a tap on his shoulder. 

“I should’ve known it was you from the beginning.” 

“Took you long enough,” Blaine grins, his curls loose in the wind flowing through the open doorway, a red handkerchief in the pocket of his blazer that matches the red of his polo shirt. “Fastest man alive.”

**Author's Note:**

> I'm at love-that-we-were-in on tumblr if you ever want to reach out.


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